Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us try now, then. I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

In the last year of the last Labour Government, we were spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, a level that has not been matched in any of the subsequent 14 Tory years.

Like the Defence Secretary, the Leader of the Opposition and I were in Munich at the weekend, and the urgency of the need for more help for Ukraine ran through every discussion. Everyone was also profoundly moved by the words of Yulia Navalnaya, speaking even after the news of her husband’s death at Putin’s hands. This is the brutality that the Ukrainians are fighting, and this is why UK support must not falter. We strongly back last month’s UK-Ukraine security agreement, which the Defence Secretary has described as “a 100-year alliance”. Will the Government take the necessary next step and provide an implementation plan for this year and future years, to ensure that Ukraine receives the help that it needs now and for tomorrow?

[James Heappey]

While I am grateful for the history lesson on what was spent under the last Labour Government, the commitment to match our spending in a future Government was conspicuously absent from the right hon. Gentleman’s question. However, let me return to the collegiate spirit in which Defence questions are normally conducted. I absolutely agree that what the Secretary of State set out in his speech about the partnership with Ukraine requires a strategic approach, with very long horizons set for what our co-operation, both industrial and military, could look like.

[John Healey]

Long horizons are fine, but Ukraine needs more help now. I am concerned about the £2.5 billion for Ukraine that was announced last month and described by the Prime Minister as

“the biggest single package of defence aid to Ukraine since the war began”.—[Official Report, 15 January 2024; Vol. 743, c. 578.]

The Minister has said much the same today. In response to a question from me last week, however, he would not rule out using that money to cover the UK’s operational costs at NATO bases. Will he rule that out today? Will he confirm today that every penny and every pound of the £2.5 billion for Ukraine will go to Ukraine?

[James Heappey]

I fear that the right hon. Gentleman has missed something over the last two years. The £2.3 billion that the Government have provided for operations to support Ukraine has always included not just the gifting in kind that takes the headlines, but Operation Interflex and other avenues through which we support the Ukrainians. The fact is that next year’s spending and that of the year after will match exactly what we did in previous years, in terms of the breadth of that contribution. It is also true that the long-term strategic alliance that the Secretary of State set out and the commitment year on year to spend more than any other European ally are not mutually exclusive; we are doing both.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The agonies of the Palestinian people are extreme. We all want the fighting to stop now, for hostages to be returned now, for aid to be ramped up now, and a ceasefire that lasts permanently. What is the Defence Secretary doing to help his Israeli counterpart to accept that their threatened offensive against Rafah just cannot happen?

[Grant Shapps]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the seriousness of the situation. As he has just heard, I visited Israel before the new year and had those conversations directly. I believe that it is in Israel’s interest, obviously in Gaza’s interest, and in the world’s interest to see that immediate cessation followed by a permanent ceasefire. We are doing everything we can to persuade the Israelis of that necessity and to put pressure on Hamas, who still hold hostages—if they were to release them, this thing could finish very quickly. We are also helping by ensuring that we work on plans for what happens in the north of the country and in southern Lebanon.